1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the storage and dispensing of water or flavored beverages under gas pressure of between 90 and 150 psi (10 atmospheres). Such products are commonly known as syphon seltzer water, as distinguished from present day bottled sparkling waters or lightly carbonated flavored beverages which are charged to pressures of 50 to 60 psi (3 to 4 atmospheres). For further purposes of comparison, champagne is under about 6 to 7 atmospheres of pressure.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Although the syphon seltzer water industry was a giant at the turn of the century and reached its zenith in the 1920s, today it is remembered mostly by the classic syphon seltzer bottle which was used as a comedy prop by the Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges to squirt each other in wild water fights. The New York area alone at one time had 2,000 syphon seltzer companies. Today there are about a dozen seltzer bottlers in the United States. There are only two syphon seltzer bottlers west of Chicago.
The syphon seltzer industry died after World War II and remains as a nostalgic, marginally profitable local business carried on by only a handful of energetic young folk who hand fill and hand deliver the old-fashioned syphon seltzer water to a fiercely loyal group of purists who want nothing more and nothing less than thrice-filtered water and carbon dioxide. There are no salts; no flavors; no preservatives, a trio that is sweet music to the palates of the health conscious.
Syphon seltzer water, up until now, however, because of the use of high pressures in glass bottles was a victim of several factors: (1) the high cost of products liability insurance; a heavy glass bottle exploding under a pressure of 150 psi can inflict awesome damage; (2) the high cost of heavy glass bottle manufacture; (3) the high cost of tin, rubber, and brass used in the manufacture of the pewter heads and valves; (6) the high cost of bottle delivery and pick-up of the heavy, fragile bottles; (7) the high cost and difficulty in sanitizing the returned bottles, and especially the returned heads and valves; and ultimately (8) the switch by the mass market to lightly carbonated flavored drinks in disposable cans and thin bottles. The syphon seltzer water industry died, not for a good product, but for the variety of reasons set forth above which related to its storage, distribution and dispensing problems.
A brief background, therefore, of the seltzer industry and the syphon seltzer container is necessary to an understanding of the dramatic change this invention brings to an industry which has essentially stood still for the last sixty years.
Mineral waters with light natural carbonation were enjoyed by earliest man; the Romans knew about them but used the water more for bathing than drinking, witness Bath. The Germans and the French considered the mineral waters to have curative powers and they live today in such industries as Vichy, and Perrier. Of course, the mineral waters from the early spas could not be transported very far, because heat and lack of pressurized vessels took its toll on the taste and effervescent quality of the water. In 1772, a British scientist, Joseph Priestly, better known for his discovery of oxygen, succeeded in producing artificially carbonated water. He made it in barrels and the race for a container was on. The British Navy mixed the carbonated water with lime juice and later the practice was adopted through the Royal Navy to prevent the sailors from getting scurvy from their vitamin-deficient diet; hence the term "Limeys". Nicholas Paul of Geneva is credited with starting to manufacture imitation spa waters in bulk in 1789 and one of his partners, Jacob Schweppe, four years later started making soda water.
The manufacture of carbonated water in the United States began in the early part of the 19th Century. A patent was granted in 1810 for saturating water with "fixed air."